I didn’t even have to apply for a job, all I had to do was walk in. Open interviews, mid- August, 2021, I had turned 15 not even two weeks prior. I don’t remember what I wore, just that it was nice, nice enough that the first words I heard when I walked into the lobby were “Someone’s here for a job!”. The woman behind the table was kind, she asked me where I went to school, if I had ever worked. She explained the job to me, what I would be doing, how much I would get paid. I was hired within five  minutes of walking through the door. Maybe that should have been the first red flag. 

I knew I would be working since I was a child: my parents had both started working at 14, and I knew that if I wanted to go to college I would have to do the same. I felt a little behind  being hired at 15, but sophomore year had yet to start, and I would have a job to go along with it. I didn’t consider the fact I had been hired over a year into a global pandemic; I didn’t consider what that vital piece of information would change.

The work started out well, my first month or so went smoothly, I was hired when the Covid-19 case averages were in the 200’s per day range in the county I live in. Within two months of working they were in the 800 per day range. By the fifth month of working omicron had risen, case numbers existed in the 2,000’s.

So what did this mean for the store I worked at? It meant that people quit. On the weekends I found that my department had been reduced to only two  or three of us at a time, all under the age 16. It meant that my coworkers called in sick, it meant I worked everyone’s job at once. Mid-January I spent five  hours outside running in the parking lot, it was 12 degrees outside, and I developed mild pneumonia. I spent a lot of time ‘Bouncing’, meaning that I moved from task to task to cover multiple jobs- something that we were not supposed to do for more than a couple of minutes. I did it for the entirety of my shift. By the end of January I requested reduced hours so that if I was the only one working, at least I wouldn’t be the only one for 8+ hours.

Working during a pandemic posed more risks than just being overworked, it meant that I was exposed to potentially sick people constantly. At school we require masks, social distancing of some sort is put into place, and contact tracing exists. None of that is applied at work. Maybe half of the customers I see wear masks, I’ve bagged the groceries of a man who couldn’t stop coughing and listened to a woman tell someone on the phone that she was awaiting her test results. I came into work one day and noticed our sign recommending masks had been removed, I asked my manager about it and was informed that someone had torn it down two days prior. 

Working during a pandemic is taking on the weight of five jobs. It’s being exposed and exposed again, it is being screamed at and having posters ripped off the walls, it is being afraid, it is not being allowed to be afraid. Working during the pandemic makes me grateful to go home, and it makes me thankful for the millions of other people who do the same every day.